I’ll start a bit differently this time – with OpenCS instead of the usual OpenMW.

Thanks to SirHerrbatka and Zini’s efforts, OpenCS now features the functionality mentioned in last week’s post. For your viewing pleasure, the preview and editing views in all their glory:

Beautiful! And all of this is in the main branch!

Aside from that, we have fixes, fixes, fixes, and Scrawl. Like every other week, Scrawl dealt with some nasty bugs (this time having to do with NPCs not falling down). Slothlife, meanwhile, has included support for saving the current weather state in savegame files. I think that loading and saving the state of a character’s spells list should also appear soon.

OpenMW v0.29.0 has been released – the best release since the previous one! 😀 Just look at the list of changes – not only is its sheer size impressive, it also includes the long awaited option to save the game. Of course, most of you already know this very well, so let’s move on to the events of the last week.

An interesting new feature in the OpenCS editor is the initial implementation of the model preview pane. As the name suggests, it is a tool for previewing objects without having to place them in the cell rendering window.

I’m not sure if this absolutely essential feature was available in the original Construction Set, but we have it!

In addition, another portion of AI patches have appeared in OpenMW’s repository and characters under the influence of levitation and water walking magic are now able to use these spells to move over areas of water. Also, creatures can handle ranged combat – beware of skeleton-archers with enchanted, paralyzing arrows! Probably every veteran player has already experienced the charm of this weapon 😉

The OpenMW team is proud to announce the release of version 0.29.0! Grab it from our Downloads Page for all operating systems. This release includes the first implementation of the Save/Load feature, which catapults OpenMW closer to being completely playable. Please bear in mind that the save file format is not yet finalized and we cannot guarantee forward compatibility of save files until OpenMW 1.0. Some aspects of the game state, such as player controls being enabled/disabled, weather, some creature state including all magic (also used by NPCs), movement of objects between cells (except for the player), and fog of war are not currently saved. Other new features include more combat AI, blocking, area magic, and disease. OpenMW is becoming a hazardous place to be!

Check out the release video by the irrepressible WeirdSexy:

Known Issues:

Issue #416 Extreme shaking may occur during cell transitions for some users (enable anti-aliasing as a possible workaround)

Slaughterfish fly. You read that right.

Changelog:

Implemented most of the Load/Save GUI

Implemented Knockdown

Implemented fatigue decrease when doing physical activities

Implemented melee blocking

Implemented area magic

Implemented combat and combat AI for creatures

Implemented Damage/Restore Skill/Attribute magic effects

Implemented Resistance/Weakness to normal weapons magic effect

Implemented Slow Fall magic effect

Implemented auto-calculating NPC spell list

Implemented Disease contraction

Implemented blood particles

Implemented the rest of the player death feature

Implemented sleep/rest being interrupted

Implemented inventory equip scripts

Implemented display of the version/build number in the launcher window

Are there any among us who prefer ranged weapons over close quarters combat with the enemy? Are there any among us who prefer bows, crossbows, or maybe even throwing weapons? Yeah, certainly there are, and certainly they’ll be glad to hear that they can now shoot and throw at will! OpenMW now supports all nasty, harmful things relating to the “Marksman” skill category. Of course, the one behind all this is none other than Scrawl.

However, that’s not all.

Gus contributed another portion of fixes and improvements intended for the still slightly ailing artificial intelligence of NPCs. Zini improves 3D navigation in the rendering panel of OpenCS, while SirHerrbatka is working on the records editing view – which you can see on the following screenshot:

Tools

OpenMW is an attempt to reimplement the popular role playing game Morrowind. It aims to be a fully playable, open source implementation of the game. You must own Morrowind to use OpenMW. You can watch short video-faq or read detailed information on our FAQ page. OpenMW is an attempt to remake the Morrowind - brilliant role playing game. We're trying to remade Morrowind using open source tools and libraries. You won't need any Morrowind patches, because OpenMW will fix most common Morrowind engine bugs. It's worth to mention that OpenMW is open source Morrowind engine remake which allow much greater modability: change game rules, create new spell effects, etc. through scripting. With OpenMW you will be able to run Morrowind overhaul mods, texture replacers and much more like with original engine.